Inside the Phillies with MLB.com beat writer Todd Zolecki

Hamels Has Elbow Soreness, Flying to Philadelphia

Cole Hamels has soreness in his left elbow and is flying to Philadelphia tonight to be examined tomorrow by team physician Michael Ciccotti.

“We do not think it is serious, at least at this time” Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said. “We thought it was important for Dr. Ciccotti to check him out and see if there is anything more serious than what we think it is. He’ll decide once he sees him tomorrow morning if he needs to do any testing or any further testing. We did do a physical on him before we ended up finalizing the multiyear deal with him and felt comfortable with the diagnostics and such. But he’s had a little persistent soreness and we want to be cautious about it and have him checked out.”

Hamels pitched in a minor-league spring training game yesterday at the Carpenter Complex. The Phillies said afterward that it went well and that he remained on schedule to start Opening Day on April 5.

“And he was,” Amaro said. “But he’s still got a little bit of soreness in there. We don’t feel that it’s serious, but again, I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t look inside his elbow. We just want to be cautious, and we thought it was important that he sees our doctor in Philly.”

Is Hamels’ Opening Day start in danger?

“It’s a possibility, I guess,” Amaro said. “But again, we won’t know anything until the doctor sees him. Right now he’s still on course to do that. We’ll see if there are any further issues.”

Amaro said Hamels had his normal soreness once he began his throwing program at the beginning of spring training last month.

“It hasn’t totally gotten out of there,” Amaro said. “He’s got better arm speed and arm strength and that’s encouraging because he’s progressing as far as that’s concerned. But all the soreness isn’t out. … We’re trying to be cautious with it. This is a pretty important piece to the puzzle for us.”

Hamels was placed on the 15-day disabled list from Aug. 22 – Sept. 18, 2007, with a mild left elbow strain. Amaro said this soreness is in a different part of the elbow, more in the back of his elbow with the soreness on the ulnar-side of the elbow.

“He doesn’t feel pain (when he throws),” Amaro said. “It starts to get tight in between innings. It’s more of a tightness than anything else. Tightness, soreness are semantics. I don’t believe he feels it when he throws.”

We expect to talk with Hamels later this morning, so keep checking back for more.

Update (10 a.m.): Hamels is currently participating in PFP (pitchers fielding practice) drills on the half-field just outside Bright House Field. It’s certainly strange, isn’t it? Phillies fans suddenly have a queasy feeling in their stomachs, but Hamels is running around, smiling, laughing and looking fine.

Update (11 a.m.): Hamels just met with reporters. Here is some of what he had to say:

“I was able to throw yesterday. It’s just been kind of that mild discomfort that I don’t want to deal with during the season. So if he can lessen the inflammation and the discomfort, I’ll be able to throw and be productive.”

“When I’m in games I feel fine. It’s coming out of the games, having it stiffen up. Normally, when I’m done I’m able to do stuff. It was still kind of lingering. Maybe it will kind of go away over time. It never got worse, but it never completely went away.”

Hamels said he has this tightness every spring, and for that reason he is no worried. He also said he is not worried becuase he feels absolutely no pain while he pitches or at any other time for that matter. The elbow just tightens up on him.

Hamels said he think he will be able to start Opening Day, but he won’t push it, either.

“Twenty days until Opening Day,” Hamels said. “My body and shoulder is pretty much ready. It’s just trying to get that mild discomfort out.”

I’ll worry about it if the Doc says there’s a problem. It’s spring training and this kind of stuff happens all the time. Look at Santana and Rivera. Everybody is cautious this time of year, and rightfully so.

Todd, Some Philadelphia media is reporting that this means that Cole is done pitching in spring training games and that we wont see him in game action again until opening day. Do you see this a likely scenario?

I think we are seeing a different aproach by a new GM. In the past the Phils kept all injuies a deeply held secret, on the level of teh Manhattan project. Rube seems to be more open with both media and fans about little nagging injuries (Werth, Coste, Ruiz, etc) this is good, but will take time to get used to.
No need to panic…yet. I like that rather then downplay it, they are sending him north to be checked out. The fact that he is on the field and smiling is only a good sign. Cole is one of those players who doesn’t fool around with his health and certainly not his (multi) million dollar arm. If he’s not worried, we shouldn’t be freaking out.

He’s not feeling any pain when he pitches and he says he gets the tightness every spring. I’m not panicking, nor am I really worried. As f-i-j says, there appears to be a lot of transparency this spring about nagging injuries, whether its the new regime or just the attending attention garnerd by the World F***ing Champions.

Sounds like Todd is at Clearwater while the game goes on in Tampa.
Kendrick gave up 8 hits in 4 innings. 2 hits an inning is no way to perform in the majors. Bobby Mosebach did not do any favors in his outing today. It’s 6-0, Yanks, in the bottom of the sixth. Jake Woods about to enter the game.

Norma, I agree in theory, however we have a small problem. Rollins and Victorino are playing in teh WBC (rollins had a great game the other day) and Feliz and Utley are on partial duty only. that leaves only 4 regulars to play. As for pitching, 4 of the 5 starters are known (#5 is either Happ or Park) and we are still looking for our last RP and our righthanded bat off the benck. Remember, it doesn’t matter if we win or not in ST, just time to get loose and make decisions. I think KK has pitched himself into a starting job in Lehigh valley this year

Norma, Bobby Mosebach is a Rule 5 (or Rule V) guy, over from the Angels. The Phils are testing him out to see if they can make room for him. If he doesn’t make it through, he has to go back to the Angels.

And yes, there’s still three weeks left to spring. And yes, I’d say the #5 spot comes down to Chan Ho and Happ. Last year’s spring record was 12-18-1. Look how that turned out in the end…

Sorry, guys, this whole Hamels thing has me running behind my usual updates. My bad. Believe it or not, Kendrick didn’t pitch as bad as his line looks. A couple defensive miscues in the fourth inning cost him those runs. That said, Kendrick remains well behind Park and Happ. I was in the clubhouse talking to Kendrick when Mosebach pitched, but I’m told he had a couple bad breaks as well.

19 days boys and girls until Opening Day! Can’t wait till they play for real.

As we know the season is a long one and hopefully the kinks will get ironed out and they’ll play like we know they can (of course there will be many, many times when they’ll frustrate the hell out us, but that’s the joy of being a fan of baseball).

Two interesting notes from todays game:
First we Pinch hit a .154 hitter for a .318 hitter (you’ll never see that in a real game)
Second the Yanks pinch hit some guy named Nunez for some other guy named Nunez. I wonder if that ever happened before in a game

I’m more concerned about our lack of runs and hits rather than the 12 runs by the Yanks vs. some of our struggling pitchers. I wish I could have watched the game to get a better idea though. Were the Yankee pitchers that good?

My thoughts of putting the *regulars* in more consistently, was really aimed at the ‘Pen. So they could get their rhythm fine tuned, etc. One thing I forgot……There’s an extra week of spring training this year. So maybe I won’t complain again until next weekend. LOL!

You know, it would be really swell if you would date your entries AT THE TOP, so that when two-year-old items show up as related stories, it’s immediately clear that they’re old news. In fact, dates in the “related stories” box would be nice, too.

You know, it would be really swell if you would date your entries AT THE TOP, so that when two-year-old items show up as related stories, it’s immediately clear that they’re old news. In fact, dates in the “related stories” box would be nice, too.

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